Advice - Shackles flip wrong way

[hatfield]

A bit of a newbie when it comes to working on jeeps so forgive me if some of my terminology is wrong. I bought a 1975 CJ5 that the previous owner had used a SOA lift and long (6") home-made shackles to lift the jeep over 38.5" tires. Needless to say it was a bit unstable. I bought a skyjacker 4" leaf spring kit (J34 K-N) and installed it this past weekend. I used what I thought were stock shackles (the PO provided me a box of old stock parts, but I'm not really sure if they were actually stock).

The front went fine, but on the rear, the shackles flip inward (towards the rear differential) rather than tracking outward, towards the rear of the jeep like they're supposed to. See pics below (this is my first post, so I may not have insert the pics correctly). The first pic is of the rear shackle when the jeep is on the lift, with no load on the springs. Note that the shackle is already flipped inwards, almost directly in line with the spring. The second pic is when the jeep is off the lift, and the spring is fully loaded. Shackle is flipped inwards.

Any advice on how to correct this would be appreciated... is it as simple as installing longer shackles?

 

[Torxhead]

Those look like the ones off a YJ. There was a aftermarket spring shackle called a "Boomerang" for the YJ that was supposed to prevent that.

 

[PaRenegade]

They look like wrangler shackles (which are 1" longer and no big deal) and some kind of homemade mount, which may be back too far. Got any pics from below looking up? It's hard to tell what's going on at the mount area.

 

[hatfield]

They look like wrangler shackles (which are 1" longer and no big deal) and some kind of homemade mount, which may be back too far. Got any pics from below looking up? It's hard to tell what's going on at the mount area.

No pics from underneath, but I have a pic of the front mount (below). I'll get some of the rear and post them soon. However, from my untrained eye, it doesn't appear that the mounts were moved. They are bolted to the frame, and there are no other bolt holes near where they are mounted.

 

[Posi]

Did you measure the springs you removed? It was SOA did you switch to SUA?

I can see the PO lowered the frame spring mounts.

Edit: I'm referring to the first 2 pics in post 1.

 

[Old Dog]

As posi said those are not stock spring mounts. At least not the same as is on my 83.
You are going to have to get the right ones and move them away from the bumper to get the correct shackle angle.
Do not drive it like that or you will bend a spring.

 

[Hedgehog]

It looks like turning those mounts around would work.

 

[tarry99]

A bit of a newbie when it comes to working on jeeps so forgive me if some of my terminology is wrong. I bought a 1975 CJ5 that the previous owner had used a SOA lift and long (6") home-made shackles to lift the jeep over 38.5" tires. Needless to say it was a bit unstable. I bought a skyjacker 4" leaf spring kit (J34 K-N) and installed it this past weekend. I used what I thought were stock shackles (the PO provided me a box of old stock parts, but I'm not really sure if they were actually stock).

The front went fine, but on the rear, the shackles flip inward (towards the rear differential) rather than tracking outward, towards the rear of the jeep like they're supposed to. See pics below (this is my first post, so I may not have insert the pics correctly). The first pic is of the rear shackle when the jeep is on the lift, with no load on the springs. Note that the shackle is already flipped inwards, almost directly in line with the spring. The second pic is when the jeep is off the lift, and the spring is fully loaded. Shackle is flipped inwards.

Any advice on how to correct this would be appreciated... is it as simple as installing longer shackles?

I'm not sure about the mounts being wrong ? But the springs seem way to short or have too much arch in them......I think Wrong springs.........measure the old ones or measure your eye to eye distance and call Skyjacker!

 

[thescot]

That's is a real bum deal and Ive read endless postings on various jeep sites about this issue. The problem is poor quality lift kits,end of story. The springs are to short eye to eye as you can see. I had personal experience myself on a 78 CJ5 after I purchased a Procomp 4" lift kit. I sent pics,talked to the tech department and they denied there being any problem, run it they said, it will be fine. It will not be find,any idiot can plainly see this.
The shackle will flip as you show it doing and physically wedge up against the frame. Any compression of the spring will either snap your frame,your hangers or the hardware holding them to the frame. Send it back,demand a full refund including shipping if you paid freight.

 

[Bear991]

Yep man sorry but they sent you the wrong springs. I put the bomerang shackles on mine heavy duty springs along with 4 in from Rubicon and they work great. Drives and wheels great

 

[Jimbos76cj]

Those rear shackle mounts don't look like any others I've seen on a jeep. It amost looks like some one built a shackle reversal set up for it but never reversed the shackles.

The shackles in the pics are not yj shackles..

Springs have huge arc in em.

 

[thescot]

If your bent on keeping the springs an option is removing the lower from the pack and buying a set of Tomken anti kick back shackles. DAHIK how it will be OK like this Apparently it seems several aftermarket outfits like PXXXXXP are selling the same to short spring under various brands.

 

[hatfield]

To answer some of the questions, I changed the POs SOA lift to a Skyjacker 4" SUA lift. I don't know if the spring mounts/ springs that the PO was using are stock or modified. What is the stock distance between spring mounts on the rear end of 75 CJ5 ? I will go out and measure mine. I think that the springs that skyjacker sent me were the correct ones for a '75 (or at least they were all labeled with the correct part #). I like the idea of turning the rear mounts around, that will save me a great deal of time and effort...

 

[hatfield]

So I measured the rear shackles mounts... they are 45" apart, eye to eye. What are they supposed to be?

Edited to add: it is 45" from the rear spring mount to the rear shackle mount

 

[thescot]

You need to double check the distance from the forward eye to the centering pin also. You move the rear mount but if the springs are wrong or to short it will move your diff forward and it will look screwy of make for some tire rubbing. The Pro comp kit with the same issues I put on my 78 long ago made the front wheels move back what looked like about 2". Very noticable a nd very stupid lookin. Guess the bright side was I didnt need a longer D shaft.

 

[PaRenegade]

Not only that, it could affect your driveshaft length as well. Not much room for adjustment on such a short shaft. You need the frame eye to frame eye measurement, and then a point of reference measurement for one of those ends. That way your sure your going back to stock design.

 

[Old Dog]

I'm not 100% sure your 75 is the same as my 83 but mine are 43.5"

 

[hatfield]

My springs are 23.5" from center pin to eye (on both sides). This apparently is the correct length. I'm not sure if the 45" distance between mounts on my jeep is correct, but the folks at Skyjacker told me to use a come-along (or something similar) to pull the spring back and cause the spring to extend and roll the shackle over to the rear. Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[thescot]

Based on the assumption your hangers etc on your rig are stock and not moved, thats just not acceptable IMO. I can tell you from personal experiance first time you hit a trail and drop one side of the axle in a rut the shacke will do the same thing. When this happens you will have 0 suspension on that side. This happened to the CJ5 I mentioned with brand Xcomp kit and the only trail fix was to find a large tree branch and try to pry it over center back to normal. This kind of just fries me. Sell junk, don't support it and tell some body to use a come along to fix it themselves.

 

[Hedgehog]

My springs are 23.5" from center pin to eye (on both sides). This apparently is the correct length. I'm not sure if the 45" distance between mounts on my jeep is correct, but the folks at Skyjacker told me to use a come-along (or something similar) to pull the spring back and cause the spring to extend and roll the shackle over to the rear. Anyone have any experience with this?

Sounds fishy to me. Dude your going to have to either return the springs or bite the bullet hard and get the right springs or be prepared to move the shackle mounts. You need at least 5". You might get that by reaching the spring.